List of Drafts for the Fall and Winter Tales
The most rudimentary early early drafts for Earthly Paradise tales were relatively simple romances (many now in the Fitzwilliam Library, Cambridge), whose metrics, vocabulary, and settings lacked the published tales’ more elaborate frames and introspective reflections. Presumably later pencil-drafts (many now in the British Library) incorporated end-rhymes and plot-details which paralleled more closely those of the printed tales.
At the next stage of the process, Morris copied and revised these pencilled drafts in a smaller pen-hand, and marked stanza-divisions in the text with lines across the page. Most of these pen-drafts have also come to rest in the British Library. At the penultimate stage of composition, Morris then made fair copies of those pen-drafts in a large, neatly-spaced hand. At the fifth, he finally arranged and amalgamated these polished drafts into a single fair copy for the printer.
The Death of Paris
An early draft exists in B. L. Add. M. S. 45,299.
The final draft is in Huntington Library M. S. 6418.
The Land East of the Sun and West of the Moon
An early draft, tided “The Palace East of the Sun,” is preserved in the Fitzwilliam Library FW EP 25.
B. L. Add. M. S. 45,299 contains a pencil draft.
The final draft is in Huntington Library M. S. 6418.
The Man Who Never Laughed Again
Early drafts exist in B. L. Add. M. S. 45,299 and B. L. Add. M. S. 45,303.
The final draft is in Huntington Library M. S. 6418.
The Story of Rhodope
Earlier drafts of “The Story of Rhodope” appear in B. L. Add. M. S. 45,299 and Add. M. S. 45,304.
The final draft is in Huntington Library M. S. 6418.
A draft appears in Fitzwilliam Library FW EP 25.
The final draft is in Huntington Library M. S. 6418.
The Golden Apples
No early draft has been found.
The final draft is in Huntington Library M. S. 6418.
The Fostering of Aslaug
A relatively polished version exists in B. L. Add. M. S. 45,300.
The final draft is in Huntington Library M. S. 6418.
Bellerophon at Argos
An early draft exists in B. L. Add. M. S. 45,301.
The final draft is in Huntington Library M. S. 6418.
The Ring Given to Venus
An early version appears in B. L. Add. M. S. 45,302.
The final draft is in Huntington Library M. S. 6418.
Bellerophon in Lycia
A pencil draft exists in B. L. Add. M. S. 45,301.
The final draft is in Huntington Library M. S. 6418.
The Hill of Venus
Two partial early drafts for the poem are included in B. L. M. S. 45,299. One, in pen, includes 220 stanzas from the middle to the end of the tale, and the second is a long pen-draft with a truncated conclusion. Other early drafts are in Fitzwilliam Library FW EP 25 and Huntington Library M. S. 6423.
The final draft is in Huntington Library M. S. 6418.
L’Envoi
The following eight stanzas of a trial “envoi” appear in B. L. Add. M. S. 45,308.
I have heard folk say talking of such men
As brought great things in measured words to pass
That all was as/ these were but as the fountain’s splashings when
The glittering drops leap out upon the grass
That knoweth nought of that scarce moved mass
Within the bowl—such are great men they say
No idle singers of an empty day.
Good if it be so, so is left more hope
That some man unborn yet in his short life
In happy wise with that long art may cope
And rising up unwearied with the strife
Give us that good wherewith his soul is rife.
Come sun of a new world cast thou thy ray
On us poor singers of any empty day!
And yet I doubt; for if such man there were
Could bounteous nature ever let him die
Would not his glory sweep the world’s house clear
Of every crime and all infirmity
And surely then were all our craft gone by
For death and woe it is wherewith we play
We idle singers of an empty day
Yea I of little faith must still believe
That men scarce nigher through the ages draw
To godhead that shall neither sin nor grieve
And so despite all fair dreams new once saw
Blind clinging failure yet makes love our law
Makes well beloved the earths woe cumbered way
To us poor singers of an empty day.
Our craft is earthly of the earth—meseems
One after other rises up to fail
To make a few folk happier for his dreams
For some few moments among change and bale.
O worshipped dead that strove so to prevail—
Surely your whole souls spoke through words ye say
To us poor singers of an empty day.
And thou at least poor book I bid go forth/
And thou Book that here I bid go forth [two versions of same line]
To such a place mid that loved company
However little thou mayst be of worth
Yet art thou worth een just so much as I.
Go forth and pray at worst that thou mayst lie
mid kindly earth to give the heart away
Of me poor singer of an empty day.
Thou has beheld me tremble enough
At things I could not choose but trust to thee
Although I knew the world was wise and rough
Yet did I [n]ever fail to let thee see
The littleness that each day was in me
Through all this while we dealt did I betray.
The idle––
Therefore o book how querulous thou art
How cold at whiles, how over soft at whiles,
How blind to see ought of another heart
That in a soul struggling in self-woven toils:
At thine own wisdom oft how full of smiles
How cowering down before the worlds great fray
Thou idle—
Morris’s dedication of the book to Chaucer’s spirit in the more polished final version asserted his claim of partial kinship with his great predecessor.
The final draft is in Huntington Library M. S. 6418.